


The Origin of You

by Leonawriter



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Dreamsharing, Family, Gen, Pre-Nibelheim Incident, References to Canon, ambiguously canon compliant however, or very shortly before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:49:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: Sephiroth tells Zack that sometimes, he dreams of caves. But there are some things that he doesn't share.In the OG, Lucrecia said that she dreamt of Sephiroth, but what if the connection worked both ways?





	The Origin of You

Sephiroth wakes up in the middle of the night and stares that the walls of the inn they're staying at, not seeing a single damn thing for all his enhanced eyesight meant that he could, if he wanted to, pick out the spots where the paint had dried uneven.

He'd had those dreams again.  _Those_ ones. He knew the ones, because when he awoke, he invariably did so with tears in his eyes that he could never explain, and a sense of having  _missed_ something.

He glanced around the room, only to find that Zack was missing.

...

_"Professor?"_

_"Well, boy? What is it?"_

_"I was wondering. About my parents. You told me about my mother. That she's dead. What about my father?"_

_Hojo had been preparing a syringe as Sephiroth had sat obediently on the edge of a hard hospital bed in the science department. Nine years old and asking_ _questions._

_"I suppose you could say that I had some hand in your creation, so you could refer to me as such, if you want," Hojo said, a satisfied smile on his face. Sephiroth was never quite sure if it was due to his own question and the answer he had been given, or the fact that everything seemed in order for the next series of tests._

_Sephiroth pondered the idea for a moment, while he prepared for the needle. It was just a routine blood test, not mako, so at least it was only mild discomfort._

_"Very well," he said once he had been told to hold a swab to his arm. "How shall I address you, then?"_

_He had heard others his own age refer to fathers as 'papa', or 'daddy'. Hojo felt like neither of these. He also did not feel very much like a 'dad' or even, if Sephiroth were honest, a 'father'._

_"Just 'Professor' will do perfectly well, boy. I'll have none of that sentimental nonsense from you. Well? Stand up. And take that off, it should have healed by now."_

_..._

The sound of faucets and running water told him where Zack was, and footsteps told him when Zack was returning. Hair that had lost some of its volume and stuck to his face rather than sticking up in spikes rather like his blond friend in the bed in the other room told Sephiroth that it likely hadn't just been a normal restroom break.

He waited until Zack had thrown himself - as gently as he thought that Zack  _could_ , at least - back onto his bed before saying anything.

"...Zack?"

"Huh- hm?"

He must have thought that he was asleep still, somehow. Despite the fact that their eyes glowed in the dark of the room, ever so slightly.

"Can you keep a secret?"

He hadn't told either Angeal or Genesis, back when they had still been around and he had been able to call them 'friend' without a bitter taste in his mouth. He hadn't wanted to know what they thought of it; hadn't wanted to risk the strangeness of sharing when things had been normal. And then he lost the chance.

"Wha... yeah, of course I can. You know me. Y'can trust me, right?"

Now, though, he was tired. Tired of it all. As tired as it sounded as though Zack felt, with his own sleep interrupted.

For the longest time, he still said nothing. 

Something about not feeling ready yet, as though he could simply pretend - Zack would not push, would not press, and that made him feel... relieved. Or something along those lines.

He closed his eyes, and sighed. Remembering. 

"Sometimes," he said, voice breaking the silence yet again, "I see caves when I dream."

Zack snorted, but it didn't sound derisive; not how he had always suspected Genesis would sound if he had said this within the man's earshot. 

"After all the missions I've been on that end up with me in a cave and sometimes wading through not just monsters but some real weird stuff, I can't say I'm surprised. I'm pretty sure  _all_ SOLDIERs dream of caves."

Sephiroth shook his head slightly - an undignified gesture, given he was on his back and couldn't move his head very far. 

"Perhaps I should say, 'a cave'. As in, singular."

For a while, Zack was silent. A snide, amused internal voice said,  _I should record this moment. It isn't often that Zack goes quiet and it isn't because of some awful event._

"Yeah... that is kinda weird. Any idea which cave?"

Although, at least Zack was sounding slightly more awake now, to take him seriously. 

But on the other hand, that wasn't necessarily a  _good_ thing. They were on a mission, and as the higher ranking SOLDIER on said mission, Sephiroth should have been the one ensuring that everyone on the team was well-rested -  _not_ keeping the only other SOLDIER up at night with pointless questions.

"Not really," he said, however. He had started this, he might as well finish. "All I know is that it is somewhere that I have not yet been, and that I... wish that I could." He sighed again. "Perhaps none of that matters, however, given that the only way that I know of its existence is through dreams, so it may not even exist at all."

Zack snorted, and there was the distinctive noise of Zack bouncing upright on his bed that made Sephiroth crack his eyes open again.

"Hey, sometimes you've got to believe in your dreams! Angeal would say that. 'Dreams, pride, and honour.'"

"I don't think they're quite the same dreams than those that Angeal referred to, Zack."

Zack flopped back down onto his bed, but the tell-tale blue glow said that he was still looking in Sephiroth's direction. 

"Maybe, doesn't mean it's not true, though. If you think it's real enough you believe in it, then that's your dream cave, man. I mean, me? My dream is to become a hero. Back when I told Lazard, he said, 'Impossible dreams are the best kind'. I didn't get it back then, and I dunno if I still do, but... it just means you've always got something to keep aiming at, right?"

"Right," Sephiroth said, slowly. "I suppose."

Lazard. Someone  _else_ who had betrayed them. And they had no idea where the man currently was, either. But that was neither here nor there, since finding him was no part of  _their_  mission.

Genesis could be, if the intelligence he had been given was correct, as well as how he - or his copies - had been seen all over the world. 

There was nothing either of them could do about any of these things, however, and he ordered Zack to put his head back down again, and go back to sleep. 

Zack told him to dream of caves, and he wasn't sure if he was being honest, or teasing somehow.

...

_The crystals glow a pale blue when he looks around, lighting up the cave and somehow it feels soft, welcoming._

_It also feels sad, however. It always feels sad. This, he knows while in the dream, is why he always wakes up with tears on his face._

_He can feel someone else is here with him. Someone that the... sadness... is coming from. When he had been younger, he had thought that this presence had been hiding behind the largest crystal in the middle of the cave, but now that he is older he_ _wonders about that, and wonders if perhaps he dreamed the idea of another person up, entirely from his own imagination. Or paranoia._

_He wants to believe that they are real, whoever they are, so instead of ignoring the feeling of their presence, he sits down and basks in it, that feeling of sadness and - worry, that was it - washing over him._

_"I'm... sorry," he hears a voice say. Soft. Almost not there at all. "I'm so sorry."_

...

He wakes up again, sunlight streaming through the windows this time, and there are tears on his face again, and feels as though he is missing something important. 

Who, after all, would ever need to apologise to  _him?_  

And then, he was shaking his head with a slight frown as he methodically went through his morning routine, reminding himself that it had been, after all, only a  _dream_ , and dreams, or so they said, did not have to make sense.

As though life made all that much sense in general, these days.


End file.
